29 mars

Information Minister, Omran al-Zoubi, dismissed the terrorists’ targeting of residential neighborhoods, schools, universities and hospital with mortar shells as coming in the framework of carry out a foreign order of terrorist escalation to the farthest extent.
In an interview with the Syrian TV aired Thursday, al-Zoubi said this escalation, which comes in parallel with giving Syria’s seat at the Arab League (AL) to the ‘Doha Coalition’, aims to suggest that ”terrorists are attacking in the middle of the capital and that as if the state is unable to protect the civilians.”
He stressed the aim to ”intimidate people to drop their work and use this by the media to suggest that they are close to achieving the goals of their aggression on Syria” will definitely fail.
”The Syrian Arab Army is at its best, and the Syrian people are keen on their state as they believe in it and their morale are high,” said the Minister.
He added that these attacks will not stay long and ”they reflect fear rather than bravery or victory on the part of the armed groups.”
He noted that Qatar and Turkey and some Arab and Western intelligence ”are today throwing all their weight and bets at once behind a last desperate attempt to dismember and topple the Syrian state.”
Minister al-Zoubi pointed out that the AL Summit’s decision to leave the door open for any of the Arab countries which want to arm the terrorists in Syria is not new ”as the arming has been going on since the beginning by countries which openly announced that.”
He stressed that this decision violates the UN General Assembly resolutions and the rules of the international law which incriminate the arming operations taking place in other countries as well as the attempts at forced regime change by interfering in other countries’ affairs and supporting armed groups.

Syria’s government is actively defending the country from the inflow of foreign Wahhabi. Over the past two years they have managed to increase their presence in Syria’s territory to 200-250 thousand people. Just imagine something like this by comparing the number of that group to the total number of the local population. Today they comprise 1% of the population, which in the scale of France, for example, means that 650 thousand foreign well-trained and experienced gunmen cross the country’s border with the goal of destroying the country! Nobody could stand up to that. But Syria is a strong country and it is continuing to defend itself. There are very few powerful countries in that region and that is why they are trying to destroy Syria.
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Muammar Gaddafi was a great statesman who fought against colonialism. But his policy was errant, which led to his loss of all serious allies.
Speaking of Bashar al-Assad, I must say that this is a leader of a completely different kind. He is very rational, is known for his remarkable composure and is consistent in his actions. Perhaps, he is somewhat lacking in intuition, but in any case, he has the qualities that fit the current situation the best way. He is the right man in the right place! Do you know that he is a revolutionary and democratic leader, which contradicts what is persistently said about him? Hugo Chavez, for example, said that Fidel remained his political ideal role model, but the ruler who was closest to him in his style of behavior and who continued Castro’s work was Bashar al-Assad.
He inherited a dictatorship and in the course of a whole decade he changed it step by step. He gave education to the people, as well as the means to move to the democratic system of government. Every time he took a step forward, he was threatened. They wanted to prevent him from reforming his country. But despite the war, Bashar al-Assad continues his reforms.

As US Army veteran Eric Harroun awaits trial in Virginia for allegedly fighting alongside al-Qaeda supporters, the man’s father claims he was working for the CIA and was reporting back to the agency from Syria.

Syria’s Permanent Representative at the UN Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari said that Syria always has and always will seek the legislation of arms trade due to the risk posed by illicit arms trade on international security and peace.
During the closing session of the UN conference on the arms trade treaty, al-Jaafari said that Syria objects to the current text of the treaty as it doesn’t address foreign occupation, the right to self-determination of people under occupation, and the crimes of aggression, in addition to not having a clear article on the absolute ban of providing weapons to terrorist elements and groups.

If not for this U.S.-sponsored flood of guns, the Syrian rebels — many of them from Saudi Arabia and other countries — would have been militarily defeated long ago. Tens of thousands of lives would thus have been spared and a million refugees could have remained in their homes in Syria. The large scale ethnic-religious cleansing initiated by the rebels would have been preventable.
But Obama is so intent on war that he will not even discuss peace with the Syrian government. He has repeatedly stated that there are “preconditions” for peace negotiations, the most important one being the downfall of the Syrian government, i.e., regime change. If a toppling of a nation’s government is Obama’s precondition for peace, then Obama is by definition choosing war.
Never mind that Syria is a sovereign nation that should not have to worry about a foreign country making demands as to who is in power. Obama doesn’t seem to think this relevant. In fact, his administration has been very busy determining who the “legitimate” government of Syria is, by hand picking the “National Coalition of Syrian Revolution,” the prime minister of which is a U.S. citizen.
One of the preconditions for being on Obama’s National Coalition of Syrian Revolution is that there be no peace negotiations with the Syrian government. Of course most Syrians want to immediately end the conflict in Syria, since it threatens an Iraq-like destruction of the country.

Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Suleiman al-Abbas, reviewed with Ambassadors of Russia and China in Damascus the investment opportunities for oil and gas exploration in open areas and Syrian territorial waters.
In separate meetings with the two ambassadors on Thursday, al-Abbas discussed cooperation relations between the Oil Ministry and the Russian and Chinese companies in oil and gas exploration and developing existing fields to increase productivity and import of oil industry equipment.

In summary, there is nothing in the Arab League Charter permitting that body to expel or even sanction Syria. In fact, doing so violates the Charter. As seen many times, but recently in Libya, foreign intervention is never humanitarian rather it is always geo-political. Syrians, not by outsiders can best solve its internal problems.
Is it now left to the BRICS states – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa to stand up to the AL and to help halt the conflict in Syria? There is growing sentiment in Syria that this group of five emerging powers may become a major hope for the Syrian people that suffer from blatant foreign interference in their affairs and suffering from the Arab League acting against their interests. The AL members who voted to expel or sanction Syria are merely channeling the geo-political interests of the United States and Israel, which are increasingly viewed among the Arab pubic as “unofficial members” of the Arab League.
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This decision to supply arms to the Syrian opposition not only violates international law, but again in the words of Lavrov, “is a blatant encouragement of confrontation of the irreconcilable forces on both sides to make them fight this war to the bitter end.”